" Wheeled, track, GEV, walker, or grav for vehicles?" Topic

As a follow up (sort of) on the thread I started about favorite alien figures for 15 mm Science Fiction what are your prefered modes of transportation type for your AFVs and other vehicles. I tend to have mostly tracked MBTs for my forces but there are also some walkers and a few grav vehicles. Most of my civilian vehicles tend to be wheeled. This is one of those subjective area and there is no wrong answer. I suppose I look at the universe I am gaming as that grav vehicles are rare and on the bleeding edge of technology.

I suppose in my science fiction war torn universe the problems of engineering are more pragmatic/affordable to create walkers compared to having grav vehicles, and of course tracked AFVs are a well established technology. Yet I am considering finally adding a few grav vehicles to my collection for those advanced secret weapon scenarios. I find it odd I have never purchased any GEV vehicles given that it is established technology and would seem most pragmatic. Plus some of the models that manufactures make are just cool looking. You could not have Hammer Slammers without GEVs and what all those OGRE games?

Tend to agree with you on grav vehicles. In the past I was of a similar mind with GEV vehicles, but once I read a Slammers story I was hooked.

Oh, Lord, religious arguments again. . . *sigh*

A fair number of GEVs can double as grav vehicles. A lot of the Brigade line, for example. In a universe that is just learning grav tech, many of the grav vehicles could easily be converted GEVs, if only to provide some cover of secrecy to the military prototypes and already have bumpers all around while steering is worked out.

Between the two is the "skimmer", a near-ground vehicle that uses something other than an air cushion to float. Think Star Wars.

What any of these look like is universe dependent, as the precise nature of grav tech will determine what the vehicles must look like.

Grav.

Grav. I want my future unashamedly fantastic. But you are right; it's subjective.

I use Old Crow vehicles.

Not very high-tech but I always have a soft spot for wheeled combat vehicles.

I think part of it is that my first proper scifi game was Rogue Trader, which always emphasized the idea that most military vehicles were just civilians ones that had been rebuilt.

One of the things I like about the "Slammerverse" is that you can pretty much have all of them on planets with different tech levels or needs, with a couple of provisos.

There are no combat walkers in the books and, technically, Blowers aren't classic GEV hovercraft.

John "dog in this fight" Treadaway

I like all but walkers--though to be honest I do have a bunch of those--it all depends upon the model and if it looks "right." If I had to pick only one, for science fiction games, though, I'd go with GEV, and I blame David Drake for that.

Rob

I like how Dirtside made very significant terrain penalties for GEV and GRAV Vehicles. YMMV. Walkers were seldom deployed except in close terrain in counter-attacks on over-extended enemy forces.

Most of the factions in my games were prone to terrain and "off board" financial limits on much "high tech" equipment they could deploy.

From Low Tech to High Tech example:

The Christian Communists of the People's Holy Republic use wheeled with some tracked for super heavies. Lots of woods, badlands, hills/mountains, and communal farming on plains.

The Native People's Republic (think Great Plains environment) use GEV a lot with Wheeled/Tracked secondary. They could run slashing raids on the PHR plains on the common border but deep penetrations suffered from the dense terrain in deep PHR heartlands.

At the high end there were GRAV vehicles but since these were not designed to be dropped from altitude but fusion powered ground bound tanks an the setting was a third tier priority balkanized planet there were not a lot of them. I always felt that the majority of the groups on planet were low end financially compared to the "Big 4" super powers and replacements might be a long time from order to delivery.

The Indonesian Commonwealth was the "biggest" power on planet and had a lots of Island and coastal holdings so GRAV made sense for them.

I always had a SMALL issue with Renegade Legion grav tanks as drop ships; they could deploy in near space, I think, and drop to the ground.

I like grav as uber tanks because of 'high tech', but orbital transition seemed a stretch. DEFINTELY should be expensive compared to other vehicles.

You can have your technological monsters, but only in one of ten battles on the salient. Choose.

Doug

PS As for walkers, I'm 'okay', but the closer to anthropomorphic, the itchier I get; we are a VERY bad design. AND if you start pulling transforming… *shudder*

TheBeast, I have to agree the few walkers I have must have an aesthetic of design that is not too anthropomorphic. That said I do have one clicks Mech Warrior model I converted and repainted just for its cool factor. It tends to be played as the personal AFV of a particular successful mercenary commander in my game world.

Covert Walrus, I am NOT trying to have a "religious" debate.

I am just looking for a casual discussion on your preferences. Not surprising we see a the influence of David Drake's novels on the subject. And yes John you have a HUGE Newfoundland size hound in this fight.

Yep, I need to add some GEVs to my collection.

Biggest issue with Grav tech in any setting is that it has to have some serious drawbacks or why would anyone use anything else?

Cost might be an issue, but if a tank that 'guarantees' victory costs 10x a normal tank, militaries will still buy it.

A nice compromise might be the Star-Wars-esque 'Repulsorlift' that acts like a GEV, but isn't much use beyond a couple of meters max.

One solution might be that the power plant requirements are so steep, it prevents adding much armour to the vehicle.

Hence, tracks are the heavy bruisers and grav's are the fast scout vehicles.

I mix everything except GEVs. For some reason (even though I have read the Slammer's stuff) I've never really liked the ground effects skirted vehicles. Never liked the look of them.

I like wheeled and tracked vehicles since in my opinion most vehicles would be locally produced due to space and cost considerations when using interstellar travel. I do like powered armor for heavy infantry in lieu of vehicles.

I'd really love to see someone build WiGE ground-effect vehicles. Not so much hovertanks as a cross between a helicopter gunship and a Harrier jumpjet. Kinda like the DP9 hovertanks, but with actual aerodynamic surfaces and thrust-vectoring nozzles.

Hovercraft don't make a lot of sense for combat craft. You will notice that the US did test some combat hovercraft in what is probably the most favorable environment for them (the Mekong delta and the Plain of Reeds), and found them severely lacking. The only place hovercraft are still used by the military is as landing craft, since hovercraft can simply run up the beach at 100kph.

For really high-tech forces, I like grav tanks. For lower-tech forces, GEV might make sense (hey, I've read my share of Hammer's Slammers). But wheeled and tracked vehicles will still be with us in a thousand years.

I don't like combat walkers bigger than about twice man-size. Even then, a 12-foot-tall bot is a very large target. But I can see situations where a one-man IFV that still moves like an infantryman and can seek cover the same way would be very effective, like cities and other close terrain.

As long as they look good and fit the background and tech level for the force they will be attached to, I'll happily use any and all vehicles in my games.

I have different standards for the highest tech level for different settings, so ground effect for Hammers Slammers, grav for Traveller, walkers for BT or anime.

OK, back to apologise. This seems to have been a very good discussion for once on this topic.

And I like Dirtside2 getting a plug for a realistic approach to movement technologies :)

Ok, I have to admit that Landspeeders/GEVs I kinda dig, with all their limitations. Weapons systems that are deployable on these sorts of craft are going to relatively low recoil as there no reasonable way of transferring said recoil forces to the ground like more conventional armor.

I always liked the description of Pipers's Contragravity Tanks, they had to set down on to their treads before they could fire their main weapons.

I have always been a hover/gev fan (no pun intended) if you going to play sci-fi then play sci-fi… i have to admit though i have recently been thinking about weapon recoil effects on gev platforms as i just kitbashed two field artillery gauss canons mounted on hover sleds to match the rest of the vehicles in my Hammers Slammers mercenaries force, so the question is would they need to have some sort of stabilizers to compensate for the recoil or maybe some sort of a anchor system or simple just shut down the gev propulsion so that the hover sled is on the ground when firing it's gauss canon? Hmmm now i think about it would a gauss canon have that much recoil due to its kinetic energy firing system?

We managed recoil, where required, decades ago with recoiless rifles.

I don't see why we can't do the same – and better – in an SF environment.

John T

Could put a kinetic cannon on a GEV/Hover if the cannon was recoilless rifle or a Davis Gun, otherwise the recoil force would send the vehicle skimming in opposite direction.

If vehicle was using magnetic levitation the vehicle might be able to direct the magnetic field to absorb the recoil.

GEV/Hover – use Lasers to avoid significant recoil?

Or rockets/missiles and a smaller-caliber main gun (ie, armed much like helicopter gunships).

Or rockets/missiles and a smaller-caliber main gun (ie, armed much like helicopter gunships).

As I've said before, purely taking one example, a Slammer's Blower is – in affect – a helicopter gunship.

Sure they are very heavily armoured and very, very low flying (multiples of inches!) but they brake, flare and drive like low flying helicopters so they are much more choppers (hence the name "blowers") than tanks, to be frank, even if they are used as AFVs in the classical sense.

I figure low flying grav would be similar. High flying grav would be like regular helicopter gunships and/or transformational VTOLs (in an Osprey kind of way).

And then there's those that come in from orbit…

John T

Could put a kinetic cannon on a GEV/Hover if the cannon was recoilless rifle or a Davis Gun, otherwise the recoil force would send the vehicle skimming in opposite direction.

recoilless gauss rifle it is then. :)

I have 3 forces of different tech levels – wheels, hover & grav. I don't like high recoil weapons on vehicles not in contact with the ground, but thats what lasers and missiles are for :)

I'm also interested in Wing in Ground Effect options for water/swamp areas.

Don't really like walkers but use them as robots toting HW in platoons when going where vehicles can't. I think 4 legges walkers are more likely than 2.